Amsal 11:11

11:11 A city is exalted by the blessing provided from ¹  the upright,

but it is destroyed by the counsel ²  of the wicked. ³ 

Amsal 14:1

14:1 Every wise woman ⁴  builds ⁵  her household, ⁶ 

but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands.

Amsal 24:31

24:31 I saw ⁷  that thorns had grown up all over it,

the ground ⁸  was covered with weeds,

and its stone wall was broken down.

[11:11]  ¹ tn Heb “the blessing of the upright.” This expression features either an objective or subjective genitive. It may refer to the blessing God gives the upright (which will benefit society) or the blessing that the upright are to the city. The latter fits the parallelism best: The blessings are the beneficent words and deeds that the righteous perform.

[11:11]  ² tn Heb “mouth.” The term פֶּה (peh, “mouth”) functions as a metonymy of cause for counsel, as the parallelism suggests.

[11:11]  ³ sn What the wicked say has a disastrous effect on society, endangering, weakening, demoralizing, and perverting with malicious and slanderous words. Wicked leaders, in particular, can bring destruction on a city by their evil counsel.

[14:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “wise ones of women.” The construct phrase חַכְמוֹת נָשִׁים (khakhmot nashim) features a wholistic genitive: “wise women.” The plural functions in a distributive sense: “every wise woman.” The contrast is between wise and foolish women (e.g., Prov 7:10-23; 31:10-31).

[14:1]  ⁵ tn The perfect tense verb in the first colon functions in a gnomic sense, while the imperfect tense in the second colon is a habitual imperfect.

[14:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “house.” This term functions as a synecdoche of container (= house) for contents (= household, family).

[24:31]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew term וְהִנֵּה (vÿhinneh, traditionally “and, lo” [KJV, ASV]) is a deictic particle that calls attention to what comes next. “And look” is too abrupt here; “I saw” calls attention to the field that was noticed.

[24:31]  ⁸ tn Heb “its face” (so KJV, ASV).